määritlus

Määritlus is the Estonian word for definition, the statement that clarifies the meaning of a term or delineates the extent of a concept. In practical use, määritlus appears in dictionaries, textbooks, and scholarly works to fix how a term should be understood and to remove ambiguity by specifying what the term includes and excludes. Definitions can serve different purposes: lexical definitions describe current usage, stipulative definitions assign a new meaning in a specific context, and mathematical or logical definitions introduce or fix the properties that a term denotes.

The word is formed from a root meaning to determine or set boundaries, combined with a suffix that marks the process or result of defining. Good definitions are clear, non-circular, and precise: they avoid using the term itself (to prevent circularity), limit the extension to the intended domain, and, when possible, express necessary and sufficient conditions.

In practice, a definition should be tested for usefulness by its ability to distinguish the defined term from related terms. In mathematics, a definition establishes the starting point for proofs and theorems; in lexicography, it anchors the meaning of a word for readers. Examples help, such as: a circle is the set of all points at a fixed distance from a given point; a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles.

See also: dictionary, terminology, logical definition.